This invention relates to a method of treating and conserving filled dough food products.
Filled or stuffed dough food products refer herein to those food products which comprise relatively small casings of dough, of any geometrical or fancy shapes, filled with a mixture or "emulsion" of chopped meat, vegetables, cheese, spices, etc., and the best known by their traditional names of "ravioli", "tortellini", "cappelletti", "canelloni", etc.
The filler or filling of the above filled dough food products may be broadly related to the sausage class of food products in that it comprises a lump of meat, or other mixture, wrapped in a sheet of new-made dough. Similarly to sausages, the flavor of the filler of filled dough food products improves with an adequate seasoning treatment. However, a special problem is encountered in the instance of filled dough products: in fact the seasoning process, while improving the taste quality of the filler by enhancing its flavor, brings about a deterioration of the appearance and properties of the casing formed from dough.
Known are treatments for preserving, over a short or long period of time, such filled dough food products which provided for the drying thereof (which drying process would generally continue spontaneously even after the drying treatment proper has been completed), but it is also known that this resulted in the dough casings becoming brittle, developing cracks, and finally turning to crumbles, thereby their appearance made them totally unsuitable for sale.
Moreover, a deep drying treatment could damage the filler as well as the dough casing, because, as is well known in the art, dehydrated meat does not "recover" with the simple addition of water, not even boiling water. Lastly, the deep drying effect brought about by conventional preservation methods also resulted in an undue loss of weight, and consequently in an increased cost of the product.
Known are also various methods intended for providing a similar treatment to seasoning, or partly overlapping it, that is methods of preserving such filled dough food products over more or less prolonged time periods.
Such known methods ranged from the canning of the product in savory sauces, to deep freezing or drying. None of those methods has been successful in practice from the standpoint of mass production requirements owing to various disadvantages.
Thus, canned products, in addition to forcing upon the consumer the savor (not always preferred) of ready-made sauces, tend to develop a soaked and softened condition of the dough, which can no longer have its generally preferred tough consistency.
On the other hand, deep freezing encourages cracking and disgregation of dough owing to the surface dehydration caused by the application of cold. Moreover, deep freezing involves high refrigeration costs for production, distribution, and conservation.
Finally, dehydration is likely to result in the dough developing surface cracks, in the deterioration of the filler owing to the high temperatures involved, in a degradation of the flavor due to partial evaporation of spices, in an increased cost of the product due to the loss of weight brought about by the drying process, and so forth.
Therefore, the methods proposed heretofore for preserving or conserving filled dough food products have failed to enhance the product flavor as provided by proper seasoning.
In addition thereto, such conventional conservation methods resulted in final products which were not entirely satisfactory even from other points of view. Thus, for example, the method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,281,248 which provided a wet type of high temperature treatment for filled dough food products, resulted in final products the dough casing whereof had a hard, marble-like consistency, such that the product would rebounce off a hard surface, such as a table top.